Or Perhaps...: Omar Khadr: Child soldier

2010-11-01

Omar Khadr: Child soldier

Not a child? This is how Omar Khadr was found when he was captured.

Was Omar Khadr a "child soldier"? One can answer this question both legally and morally/philosophically. What is clear is that, at 15, Omar Khadr was a "child" as defined by the United Nations. Whether he was a "child soldier" -- as defined by international law -- is disputed by the Canadian government and many right-wing commentators. Here are some of the best assessments I've found that lead me to conclude that Omar Khadr was a child soldier.

"Omar Khadr as Child Soldier" (from "The Omar Khadr Case")

Amnesty International: "Children and Human Rights"
Via UNICEF: Optional Protocol (of the Convention on the Rights of the Child) on the involvement of children in armed conflict
United Nations: Statement of SRSG Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy on the occasion of the trial of Omar Khadr before the Guantanamo Military Commission

Additional considerations, arguments, facts, and opinions:

Click here to join Amnesty International's call to repatriate Omar Khadr to Canada.

First posted on November 1, 2010.

2 comments:

Graeme Meyer said...: Thanks for this..It seems Mr Khadr was kept isolated and confused for years in captivity almost as a prop and celebrated cause for progressive anti-war heroes using individuals as political pawns would could qualify Mr Khadr as political prisoner; Nov 1, 2010 7:40:00 PM
Rick Telfer said...: No. It was the USA that kept Omar Khadr in captivity, isolated and confused, and that used him as a political prop to justify its imperialist aims. My argument is substantive. Yours is metaphorical, and you'll have to do better than that. As argued in the National Post: "Stalin would have been proud." See: http://goo.gl/t26S; Nov 1, 2010 8:33:00 PM

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This is my personal blog. It is a space where I critique and counter reactionary propaganda and save useful references pertaining to a range of issues that interest and concern me. Opinions that are expressed on this blog are mine, and mine alone, unless otherwise indicated.

I believe that no debate is worth having unless it is based upon verifiable and credible evidence -- from reputable sources -- and also upon principles of logic and disclosure of one's aims and guiding values. Opinions are ubiquitous and generally useless; an opinion plus evidence is an argument that can become the basis of a worthwhile and rational exchange.

I am often described as "left-wing," "socialist," "Marxist," and the like. (Indeed, I often also describe myself using these terms.) However, such loaded terms are seldom clarifying because they are politically charged and historically contingent, and therefore mean different things to different people.

And so, to be clear, the following values and beliefs are my starting point.

I hold humanist values and I am committed to working towards a socially just and environmentally sustainable world. In general, I believe that the material basis of human life is paramount to understanding human behaviour and working towards social betterment.

Additionally, I believe that any conception of democracy must include a significant and meaningful role for all people to participate in decision-making that affects the organization of their society, and especially its economic organization.

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"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."

—Jack Layton (1950-2011)

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I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy — ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness — that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what — at last — I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."

—Bertrand Russell